My husband, Jon, and I are asking for help to resume our fertility treatments and for the chance to make our rainbow baby - one born following a pregnancy loss - a reality.

 

The journey of infertility is complicated, time-consuming, intimate, and most of all: expensive. In the wake of the loss of our first baby, it's also become an emotional minefield that has only made moving forward that much harder.

 

Many of our friends and family have asked how they can help. Beyond love, support, and understanding, our biggest need right now is financial.

 

Our fertility treatments use oral and injectable medications and ultrasound procedures to identify and trigger ovulation, giving us the best chances of natural conception. Like most fertility procedures, it is not covered by insurance and costs us around $700 per cycle. This does not include the costs of the medications involved, which are an additional $100 per cycle. We're asking for help because we want to try again for the chance to become parents, and we've set our goal for six months of treatments.

 

*If you would like to donate through means other than GoFundMe, please contact Jon or myself; we completely understand.
Special thanks to ShelbyLetteringCo for such a beautiful and thoughtful banner.

 

Our Story

 

Jon and I began the journey of starting a family in November of 2017. However, we soon realized how daunting an obstacle my PCOS - a hormonal condition that can cause an absence of ovulation - would be to our chances; we had to accept that we needed medical help along the way.

 

In 2020, after a long screening process, we began fertility treatments, and after five months of invasive, often painful procedures and injections, we conceived our first child.

Everything about our William James was perfect. His genetic screenings were clear, his organs were formed correctly, and he was a vibrant little wiggler and kicker who hated being disturbed from sleep for ultrasounds. We furnished a nursery. We researched everything we could think of. Jon even began the process of separating from the U.S. Navy - his greatest passion - because he wanted to prioritize our family and share in those early years with William. We prepared for the most drastic life changes we had ever faced, all for the chance to give our son the best life possible.

 

Five months into our pregnancy, however, I began to experience pain that left me bedridden for several days. What we thought was simply the predictable discomfort of carrying a baby turned out to be something far worse and unexpected. My body suffered a rare condition known as incompetent cervix. It was extremely advanced; before we were even aware of the problem, there was nothing we could do. I went into preterm labor a few days after our diagnosis, and at almost twenty weeks, our son - our beautiful son - could not have survived.

 

On our perinatologist's orders, we have had to wait six months to let my body heal before trying again. Additionally, if we conceive, I will then need a surgery at eleven weeks to preemptively support my cervix for the remainder of the pregnancy.

 

While everything else in our lives has been changed by the loss of our William, we still want to be parents more than anything else in the world, and we're grateful - from the bottom of our hearts - to everyone who shares in our story.